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 BIO | ALBUM REVIEWS | LIVE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS |
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 EDDIE GLASS' INTERVIEW FOR LOLLIPOP 2004 Nebula "Atomic Ritual" (Liquor and Poker): An Interview with guitarist/vocalist Eddie Glass by Craig Regala Nebula have made their best record so far. Nothing different in what they actually do, they've just gotten better at writing tunes, structuring the parts for impact, and controlling tone and tempo in each song as well as the album's overall flow. Atomic Ritual is hard, energetic, flowing psych-rock with a groove as the godfathers did it in the late '60s pulled up through arena kick-ass, punk rock, and all sortsa garage rock logic/revival/roots destruction. So where does their muse come from and what do they call it? Last time we talked, I asked if you were gettin' over with what I'd hope was a general "rock" audience, and sometimes the mere naming of what you do is important. So what's up? Between the last time I talked with you and now, we actually got to meet and hang out with Dickie Peterson of Blue Cheer*. He said they called it "power rock." We met him at a show in Cologne; he lives there. He came down to the show. I think we have him talked into recording. As historical roots, those guys are certainly in your direct line. But how about the stuff that got you going in the '80s as a kid? Well, a buncha Southern California hardcore and the rock and roll parts of the New Wave stuff you could hear on the radio. You hear stuff you like and run it through what you're like... Black Flag, Circle Jerks, even stuff like Devo, as well as the slightly older, bigger bands, stuff that actually came a little after much of what I really like. The acid rock/garage rock bands. The kind you find on the Nuggets** box. Guitar-heavy stuff that wasn't metal or punk, like The Wipers or Dinosaur Jr. So really, the difference between you guys and Mudhoney is slim. Well, those guys are an inspiration... How many bands make one of their best records a fifteen years after they start? They've done a really good job. We've played with'm. What's the touring like now? Better'n'better. Slowly, we've worked out a circuit, a fanbase. We can bring a couple guys with us to help with the gear, the sound. It makes it easier to do the music, to actually put your effort into playing instead of worrying about all the logistics of it. I don't wanna pigeonhole you guys as some garage rock offshoot... You're pretty much a full-service rock band. I think you've come as close to the point where Hendrix*** was when he did funky proto-metal surfacing on what was to be the First Rays of the New Rising Sun album (posthumous), like "Dolly Dagger," "Ez Rider," or "Freedom." Thanks, man. Yeah, the warm-toned blues rock thing is definitely a big part of what we do. We just don't jam on it as much as build off it, keep the energy flowing. Even if it's with acoustic guitars, or keyboards setting up the riffs or focusing the song we use it to keep it moving along, even if it's slow. More creeping kingsnake than power ballad, eh? Yeah, slow, melodic, or soft parts can help the overall impact and be really strong. Like the Amboy Dukes'**** "Journey to the Center of your Mind." One of terms you could use would be acid punk. You guys keep the rock push and the bite in place, but explore and explode bits and pieces out of it. Yeah, acid punk... Like, you need to play something that's expressive, with feeling, and sometimes you feel things that may seem to be out-of-focus of the original idea or structure, but as you work that stuff in, it gets interesting. I guess that's the acid part of it. It opens it up, allows for things to happen, lets you use space and timing differently. Like the Randy Holden record Population II; all the sustain he used without losing the picture. Or the Yardbirds doing rave-ups that tilted off into a high-energy approach. Is that part of the studio vs. live difference? Yeah, you do things live differently. That helps the music grow and keeps it interesting, and like I said, you may feel something in a different way at that particular moment, so it comes out differently. So really, you just need to come see us - or any rock band that actually plays and records their own music - to see what happens, to catch a moment that can't be replicated exactly 'cause life is like that. Speaking of life, your line about the afterworld, "Everything is beautiful, and nothing hurts," is one of the best descriptions of what heaven***** would be like. Yeah, (a grin in his voice) just like our shows… Due to a phone snafu, that's all I got. So go see'm, catch more info at www.liquorandpokermusic.com, and pick up Atomic Ritual. * Blue Cheer's first two LPs ('68-'69) were some of the opening salvos in the battle of loud, gritty guitar muck minus any tact, taste, or reverence to anything besides rockin' out. They played a show with the Stooges at this time which signaled the beginning of an outburst "the man" (which included Rolling Stone) could not tolerate. So everyone who had a ticket was sent to the frontlines of 'Nam, delaying punk rock by six years. ** Nuggets box set: A four-CD set working off the idea of Lenny Kaye's 1972 collection of garage rock from the previous decade. At the time, this was viewed as an abberant "oldies" mentality "rock" was supposed to have "grown out of" and into, ya know, James Taylor on one side and "progessive rock" (Genesis, E.L.P., The Moody Blues) on the other. *** Jimi Hendrix is often referred to as a guitar genius. Yeah, and people miss the point that that genius part was in composing music that fit the tune and never lost its r&b-rooted power, no matter how spacey it got. **** Ted Nugent's late '60s-into-'70s band. It's a good song. Honest. ***** Heaven. Don't worry about it, you're not going. top of page |
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EDDIE GLASS' INTERVIEW FOR NEW TIMES January 22, 2004 Glass Clouds: Nebula brings back the Paleolithic age of stoner rock by Tow Bowker "Hey, it's not our fault!" Nebula singer/guitarist Eddie Glass protests over the phone from his California home after it's pointed out that his band has circled the globe four times in six years yet never set foot in South Florida. "We tried on our first tour, but your whole state was on fire!" The summer of 1998's wildfires were a cultural buffer for our already musically indigent area. The baby Nebula was only a few months removed from Glass and drummer Ruben Romano's splitting from prominent Southern California rockers Fu Manchu. Nebula was an unknown, "members of" band whose debut slab, the EP Let It Burn, had just dropped and was slowly seeping into the consciousness of aging punk rockers and bored metalheads. They were blown away by Nebula's defiantly retro, bone-shattering attack. Guitar solos, vintage effects, and thundering drum fills abounded. Those geographically fortunate enough to find a Nebula gig in 1998 entered a musical Land of the Lost with musical dinosaurs instead of reptilian ones. It was a mythical world where Blue Cheer and Hawkwind ruled the charts and Iggy Pop was still living in Detroit. In anyone else's hands, Nebula's backward-minded rock would've been cheap nostalgia, but their wah-wah pedal was pushed to the metal too hard to suffer that fate. It was too good to be ignored and too old-fashioned to fit in a post-everything '90s musical climate. Something had to give. Unfortunately for Nebula, that something was "stoner rock" -- a label the band hasn't been able to shake even though it was better-applied to Sabbath-heavy doom-rock bands like Bongzilla. "People in this day and age need to throw some sort of adjective before the rock," Glass complains. "They do it because anything between the White Stripes and Limp Bizkit can be rock. Ours is just a bit more blues-influenced. We just write and play music. It comes out naturally." Maybe so, but Glass' musical journey from drummer in grunge punk band Olive Lawn (most memorable for its tune "You're a Dick and I'm Gonna Kill You") to frontman for the kings of stoner rock was bizarre. Like many punk drummers, Glass picked up the guitar, learned three power chords, and strummed along to the Sex Pistols and the Clash. But instead of writing a token "drummer song" for Olive Lawn, Glass practiced for five years and improved until he was better on guitar than drums. He then had his mind melted by Monster Magnet's 1991 acid-drenched opus, Spine of God. "That was cool and new," he says, "that spacier Hawkwind style." Monster Magnet's classic-rock stylings made Glass go back to his bedroom and mainline a steady diet of Hendrix and Led Zeppelin until he had combined the hippie masters' work with his punk upbringing. But Nebula refused to remake Let It Burn on its two decidedly punkier Sub Pop LPs (1999's To the Center and 2001's Charged), which chapped the asses of message board trolls and fanzine nerds who liked the band's stonier tunes. While the hippies grumbled, the band toured relentlessly, playing at least two overseas tours a year -- converting Europe, Australia, and South America to its cause. "Touring is like a job," Glass observes. "But it's kind of like being the head of the company, you know? You get to see the effects of your work. All the work you do, you get to get paid for. We're our own bosses." After five years of roadwork, bassist Mark Abshire bowed out, forcing Nebula to cut back to a mere 75 dates in 2003. The band reacted by recording its third full-length album, Atomic Ritual, which was produced by Masters of Reality guitarist Chris Goss. With Goss providing studio magic and odd backing tracks, Atomic Ritual is a psych-rock wonderland, a joyful stomp through musical mushroom fields that's sure to please both classic rockers and punkers. That is, if the tattooed crowd can handle keyboard tracks from the power trio. As usual, Glass isn't too worried about rock orthodoxy. "We've used the keyboards before," he relates. "It's like an extra appendage to the song." top of page |
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MARK ABSHIRE'S INTERVIEW WITH DIETER KRAUS November 2000 by Dieter Kraus Nebula are blasting in from the States for one show at the Corner Hotel and two gigs in Sydney. With them they bring a brand of high energy psychedelic guitar flavor to transport the punter into and beyond the outer reaches. Mark Abshire (bass) fills us in on what to expect from a Nebula live show and how cold it is in New York. Taking a break from the recording studio the band are wandering around New York's East Village in search of food. "It's really fucking cold here... we're not used to this.... we're from California." NYC is the place where the band have just finished the recording of a new album and now await mixing sessions. After pressing for a title of the new record (background voices "no don't tell him, it's too early") the official line is that "we haven't decided on a title yet." To The Center was released this year and recorded year previous in Seattle. When asked if the location of recording has effected the vibe of the new material Mark responds with, "Each release sees us getting better as a band and I hope the new recording will demonstrate this. We have taken a little longer with the process this time and developed our techniques in the studio somewhat also." Add to that the amount of gigs the band have been doing in the US and Europe, the outcome of these factors should see the band in fine form for gigs in Oz. "I think playing a lot of gigs is making us a better band and our sound is developing." Mark goes on to say that Nebula are not making a departure from the style of music found on To The Center, "there are still the acoustic bits on the new album", a feature of all Nebula's previous releases. "We have been playing a few of the new songs live already and it's the faster more high energy tracks that we like to play live the most." The vibe the band generate live is an unknown quantity to punters in Oz and I asked what we could expect from the live deal. "The live show is all electric, we prefer to play the high energy stuff live and we do songs from pretty much all of our releases." There have been some stories that Ruben Romano(drums) has set his gong on fire at some gigs in the States and I posed the question if there was a chance of the "rock" drum solo for the gig at the Corner. (laughing) "I'm sure Ruben will be pulling something out for the show." The band are also renowned for high levels of intensity and sweat soaked live shows. "We tend to put everything into a performance and by the end we are exhausted and drained." It's a physical effort and a release of energy/frustration for the members to play live. "It's a great thing to be able to release all the bullshit that you pick up when just walking around or on a day to day basis. It's a form of escapism from the real world I guess. I don't know how else I would get that... maybe from surfing." A pursuit that the band hope to be able to realize when they come here for the tour. "How is the weather there in November?", asks Mark. The impossible question to answer, the only assurance I could give is that it would be warmer than NYC. The term "stoner rock" is often bantered around in relation to Nebula, but Mark thinks it a "dumb term" and one that fails to truly describe the nature of music that the band plays and other bands that they draw much inspiration from. Bands that have been influential to Nebula are broad and diverse, the likes of Led Zep, Black Flag and Dinosaur Jr are but a few. "There are good bands from every generation I guess." Nebula feature former members of Fu Manchu and there have been many stories in the past about the gulf that exists between the two groups. But Mark maintains that it all seems a long time ago that the split occurred and that it had to happen. There is no bad blood between bands and the situation developed because of differences in creative ideas. On the creative front for Nebula it's front man lead guitarist Eddie Glass that's responsible for the majority of the writing. "We try to live as cheaply as possible to avoid working day jobs, it's awesome to play as many gigs as possible to get by, but it's not like we have heaps of cash or anything." The band are planning to bring a bunch of merchandise with them for the tour including cd's and shirts. Also available at the gigs will be a six color silk screen limited edition poster that's been published by local company Beyond the Pale and is designed by local artist Leigh Jenner. The interest in heavy psychedelic music may be on the way up at the moment, but it's something that has always been there. Mark reasons this to the fact that, "There are a lot of good bands playing that type of music at the moment, and interest becomes focused on guitar music again. I think people always want to hear it but when there are no good bands playing it they start listening to other stuff." After the band complete the recording process they start a two week tour of the east coast of the States, Canada and the mid-west, playing some shows with Roadsaw and The Monkeywrench. Then the long journey to these shores for the first time takes place. Be sure to catch Nebula in full flight, for a sweat soaked night of high energy rock. top of page |
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NEBULA'S INTERVIEW FOR IGN April 13, 2000 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, California by Spence D. It's about 7 p.m. on a Thursday night and Eddie is having trouble finding a patch cord that isn't causing feedback in the monitor. Ruben is sitting at his kit twirling his sticks like some Tommy Lee protege, and Mark is lurking stage left with his bass slung in front of him. After the appropriate cable is found, the band launches into a few songs: thundering slabs of low-end throb from Mark's bass; Ruben beats his drum kit like God tossing trashcans around Heaven's alleyways; Eddie lights into his six-string with restrained ferocity. My ears start to ring, even with top-notch earplugs inserted deep into my aural cavities. Welcome to soundcheck, baby! Following the band's check, I descend into the bowels of the club with them to chill in the "green room." Eddie and Ruben pull up chairs to a table situated in the far corner of the room, while mark plunks his lithe frame down on a ragged couch that's pushed up against the opposite wall. The tape is inserted into the recorder, the button is pushed and this is what we talked about: Influences... Every band has their influences. Y'know, other bands that they draw sounds, images, inspiration from Asking a band who and what their influences are is perhaps the most mundane of questions. But at the same time it is also the type of question that can really illuminate where a band is coming from, not only musically, but intellectually and philosophically. Mark, droppin' the low-end theory in SF Listening to Nebula it's hard not to hear the obvious Sabbath and Stooges influences on their music. But there's much more flowing through their sonic veins. "You know, there's a whole bunch of things," begins Eddie. "There's like the older garage, psychedelic bands like 13th Floor Elevators and stuff. You know, from anywhere like The Groundhogs to rare type of early '70s bands to like '80s punk like Black Flag or even bands like..." At this point Ruben cuts in saying "Even bands like Zen Gorilla. I mean like as far as our influences are musically, it's not really limited. It's not like tunnel vision. It's more like if it sounds good, as long as it sounds good and makes us say 'Hey, this is great music,' you know? It doesn't matter if it's heavy or if it's more acoustic or whatever." "I think influences--when it comes down to playing and writing the songs--have nothing to do with anything," continues Eddie. "You know, after awhile you get good at what you do and you become like your own influence. When I write a song I try to actually get everything out of my head completely." "It's not like 'I want to hear this Sabbath record and then let's go write a song," interjects Ruben. "So I mean it's like everything I've done up until the point of writing the song is an influence, you know?" continues Eddie. "Surfing can be an influence, you know?" laughs Ruben. On The Road Again... Nebula are veritable gods of a forgotten musical art: they are a rock-n-roll power trio; three men with the aural output of 10. And they tour. They tour a lot. I mean A Lot If you called them "Touring Fools," you would not be far off the mark. Ruben hittin' the skins in SF So, do they like being on the road? "Yup," affirms Ruben. So how does road trippin' compare to being in the studio? "Completely different experiences," explains Eddie. "But I enjoy both of them. But I think our main thing is that we're musicians and we're about playing music. And being on the road is the best way to be able to play music every night." Don't they get tired of the road rash, tour van claustrophobia, and playing dirty, dingy clubs all the time? "Of course it gets hectic," remarks Ruben. "It's not the music that we get tired of, though" continues Eddie. "It's the driving and the loading and unloading of equipment." "There's a lot of hang time where you're stuck in a van," says Ruben. "And it's not really like an office where you can get up, move to a different room and fill your cup up with coffee. I mean it is a job, you know? It's totally a job what we're doing, but it's kind of cool because it's what we enjoy, so it makes the job that much easier." "There's more of a payoff, too," continues Eddie. "It's kind of like being the head of the company, you know? You get to see the effects of your work...all the work you do, you get to get paid for it. Instead of working for somebody, if you worked at an office and the boss is on vacation, getting paid, while you do all the work. We're our own bosses. So keeping that in mind makes us want to do it more and also helps us not get tired of it. You know what I mean?" top of page |
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NEBULA'S INTERVIEW FOR ROADBURN June 1999 by Keith Ingersoll "Working 12-hour days in the thankless pursuit of unstoppable rock and roll" - that, friends, is how the Nebula tombstone will someday read. For now, though, there can be no talk of rest. "Now" is at the tail end of one place - Seattle. It is 1 p.m., midday, on a weekday. There is a quick pulse at the end of the phone. Ring. Again. Several more, then, a voice. it identifies itself. Mark. Now, there is talk of rest; the previous day has been rough . He speaks of recording, recording and more recording. All day, every day. No time to take in the picturesque vistas of this Northwest outpos...well, it's Seattle. Doesn't it rain all the time there? Can there be much to see in this London of the West Coast? Perhaps recording was invented to bring a sense of purpose to Seattle. But something has brought them there. They are to record their debut album for their new home, Zero Hour. It will be called ...To The Center. You will be required to memorize its contents. You will learn what it means to be of the capacity to rock. You do not know how to rock yet. You are not a part of Nebula. "We spent a week at our friend's house practicing, and then we've been in the city (Seattle) for like a week and-a-half," says Mark Abshire. "We just run through them (songs) and work out the rough spots and stuff. We try not to harp on just one song over and over. It gets kind of old if you just do that." Recording is old-hat for Nebula; at two years, the band has already recorded several works, most notably a well-received EP for Tee Pee Records, "Let It Burn", an split EP with Lowrider for MeteorCity Records and "Sun Creature", the band's newest release for Man's Ruin Records."Recording is pretty cool," says Eddie Glass, Nebula's singer/guitarist. "I've been doing it a long time, but sometimes it can get nerve-wracking. It only happens when you fuck up. It's like, you'll get on a roll and then you fuck up. The funny thing is that it's always the easiest songs you always pull off that you start fucking up on. I don't know why that is." Abshire says the band's philosophy towards recording is simple -do it right or don't do it at all."We try and get it right from start to finish," he says. "The basic part of the song is more or less live, and then we build on top of that. There are a couple of rough ones where it's like, 'This one's getting old; let's go to a different one and come back.'" Think of recording like modeling - it may look glamorous, but it's really hard work. At least that's what models are always saying. Nebula are not models, but they do record hard. "It's been going good, but it's been like 12-hour days," Glass says, yawning. "That's why we're so tired. We don't really stop between takes. We don't have a lot of time, so we just kind of keep going."Nebula has fanned anticipation since its earliest days; in the months following Glass and drummer Ruben Romano's departure from Fu Manchu - their last musical outfit - similar lines of thought pervaded every heavy rocker's mind: What will they do next? What will it sound like? With the release of "Let It Burn" , each question was summarily answered. Two years hence, similar questions persist with regards to the future: What exactly will they do next? Glass says this of "...To The Center", comparing it to their latest Man's Ruin release. "I don't think it sounds like the Man's Ruin record," he says. "I think it's a little different from that even. But it's still...there's heavy stuff and there's some mellow stuff. There's a few songs that are full-on heavy, and there's a few songs that are really tribal sounding. "It will be weird to see what people think of this thing, our new record. It definitely won't be metal and it definitely isn't pop. But there's going to be some things on it that so-called 'stoner bands' aren't doing." Glass is Nebula's chief navigator, writing riffs to some of the heaviest tunes to have ever oozed from a stereo. Any guitarist knows coming up with riffs ain't exactly brain surgery; separating the wheat from the chafe, however, can be. "A good riff is one that I can remember the next day," he says. "If you do something one day and then you come back the next day and you can't remember what you did, it doesn't pass the test. As long as you can come back the next day and the day after that and it's totally easy to remember, then it must be good." THEY SWING THEIR HAMMERS, THOSE NEBULA GUYS. THEY'RE the John Henry's of rock and roll -- three lads committed to rocking so hard you think they'd nearly die from the futility of it all. If you've seen the band perform live, you know what I mean. Just the band's touring schedule speaks volumes about their zealotry for performing; there is little that can stop them once they take the stage and let loose. But you knew all of that already. The band officially originated in January, 1997, sometime after the departure of Glass and Romano from Fu Manchu. Both dudes jammed for a bit with ex-Kyuss bassist Scott Reeder before hooking up with Abshire, Fu Manchu's former bassist. Glass prefers not to dwell on he and Romano's decision to leave their old band, chalking it up purely to a desire for change."We were together for a long time, like four or five years," he says. "Ruben was in longer. It just got old after a while. To everybody out there, we were a new band because we had just started to get in people's eye, but we were actually doing it for a long time so we got sick of each other. "We toured a lot that last year after In Search Of...Three records, that's a long time, you know? I'm even surprised that they're still doing it to some degree."Glass says there are no hard feeling towards his old band, terming the band's newest work "pretty cool." "We don't really care about each other anymore," he says. "We're not on bad terms or anything, though. I saw Brad (Davis, Fu Manchu's bassist) at a Queens of the Stone Age show recently and talked to him a bit, but it's not like we call each other or anything." Nebula's success has been mightily concentrated -- the band has gone quite far in a rather short time. Consider the fact that they're nearly as successful as their former outfit, having done so in about one-third the time. Paying dues is only part of the equation -- certainly name recognition can only go so far - however. The plain fact of the matter is that Nebula's gotten out there -- gone out into the great yonder -- and worked it. They don't wish "they could be out on the road" playing their asses off -they've gone out and done it. In the process, they've created a meaner, faster and more aggressive beast than perhaps even they themselves were aware could ever have existed. "I guess it's sort of ironic," Glass says. "We're almost at the same spot they are (Fu Manchu) with having to start all over again." Glass himself is a creature of rock and roll; it's been all he's even known. His first instrument was drums - he picked them up at age eight, before doubling up on guitar at age 14 - which, he says, he used to enjoy playing more than guitar at one time.Incidentally, you can hear Glass play drums for the band Olivelawn, which released two albums in the early '90s. "I was pretty good on drums before I started playing guitar," he says. "I started playing guitar and I was slow. The first five years I really wasn't very good. Then slowly, one day, I just knew how to play and I've gotten better. After 14 years, if you're not good at something, you might as well give it up." top of page |
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EDDIE GLASS' INTERVIEW FOR VIRTUAL CARDIFF (U.K.) June 1999 by David Hardacre Nebula is a stoner rock trio made up of three former members of Fu Manchu (guitarist Eddie Glass, drummer Ruben Romano and founding bassist Mark Abshire). It doesn't come as a huge shock, then, when Nebula serve up a generous helping of the kind of fuzzed-out Stoner Rock that Fu Manchu were widely respected for. According to the dictionary, 'nebula' refers to a hazy, interstellar cloud of particles and gases that forms stars. Very apt... Here, Virtual Cardiff talks to Glass about life in his new band... Although it is obviously part of your past, do you mind having the tag 'ex-Fu Manchu" constantly attached to the band? Even though they're a great band, surely there comes a time when youwant to be referred to as "the guys from Nebula" and not "the guys who used to be in Fu Manchu"? Yeah, sure, over in America it started off like that. We've toured so many times now; we toured with Mudhoney, we played with Nashville Pussy and other good bands. It's not even a deal with us any more. It's the first time we've been over here, so, like, someone will say "Let's go and see Nebula" and the reply will be "Who are they?". It seems that the Press over here play on the Fu Manchu thing a bit more, I think it's the same in Germany too but I can't really read what they write! It's all gonna blow by, you know. After a while people will have seen us and accept us for what we are. It'll be Fu Man Who? You originally hooked up with Scott Reeder (Kyuss), who was unable to commit himself to playing in the band, and then called in Mark Abshire - also ex Fu Manchu - can you tell us a bit about this period? It was when me and Ruben (Romano) first started the band - we were looking for bass players and we gave Scott a call. We'd been friends for a while and he wanted to jam with us - we jammed and played a few shows around town. At the same time he was starting up an animal store, so it was a really busy time for him -bad timing - his store's doing good, and everything. Also he lived out in the desert and we lived in the city. We then hooked up with Mark and that's it really. Had you already decided that any new material you were working on around the time of "In Search of Fu Manchu" wasn't going to be released as Fu Manchu but as Nebula or whatever your next band was going to be? No...well, sort of actually, there were a few songs that were going to be used - I wrote a lot of the songs on my 8-track recorder at home. I had tons of songs, me and Ruben were roommates, so we were just f**king round all day on the 8-track. We were coming up with songs and weird things we wanted to do, so really I guess some of the songs were written at that time, yeah some of the songs off "Let it Burn" sound as if they would be Fu Manchu songs. We've done a lot of weird shit on the 8- track - actually if we ever get the balls to release that stuff some people will go: "What the f**k?" Since Let it Burn was released your recording/production credits have nearly all been to Jack Endino (including your latest recordings with the exception of "Back to the Dawn" (Joe Hogan). How did you first meet up with Jack, who approached who? I've known Jack since the first band I was in, Olive Lawn - I played drums. We recorded both of our records with him back in 90/91. I think I first met him through Mark Arm (Mudhoney). We played a show with Mudhoney and Mark said to me "Hey Jack is really into you guys". I got his phone number and gave him a call. I hadn't talked to him since the Olive Lawn days so I called him up and said "Hey Jack, do you know who this is?". He was stoked on it - he made us a deal. We recorded some stuff with him and we just recorded our new record with him. You finished touring with Mudhoney at the end of 98 and started writing songs for what is to be your next release. Can you tell us a bit about how the recording went? Oh yeah, sure, it turned out good. We recorded some stuff for Man's Ruin and Meteor City and that worked out really good and easy. We did that really quick in three days. All the recording we did in a little studio and it turned out really cool, you know, we like to mix our records, we're totally into the recording process, you know, sitting down with Jack - he's really cool. Jack's really amazing at getting the sound out - he has his own sound. The new recording aside, this year has already seen an impressive string of releases with the re-release of Let it Burn on Relapse Records, the split EP with Lowrider on Meteor City, the Sun Creature EP on Man's Ruin. Including the new album on Zero Hour records, that's four releases on four different labels! Yeah, you're right, four releases/four labels. The new album will be released some time in August and it's going to be called "To the Center". This is your first release for Zero Hour Records - can you tell us how the signing came about? They'd heard about us and came to our shows, they're based in New York, that's where the managers are based - that's how the signing came about really, they approached us. You've been touring since the end of April/start of May, including the Subway Festival in Germany and last weekend the Dynamo Festival in Holland. How has it all been? That was rad, the Subway Festival was really cool. Subway was a smaller set-up - it's more like clubs. Zeke played - they're friends of ours, Unida played, Dozer played, I liked the Subway Festival - Dynamo was pretty cool, just a bigger scale outside. We don't get to play outside festivals too often, everybody had the shits that day. You finish up in London next weekend - what (apart from to rest,) are your immediate plans then? We're going back home for a few weeks - I think we have some shows to do in New York. Last time you played a European festival, you ended up in collaboration with "That's All Folks" for a split 7" single on Last Scream records. Have you met up with any bands at either of the festivals this time that you would like to do a split EP with? I don't know really, we've seen some cool bands, I know we'd love to tour with Zeke. The Heads are really cool too. We've been wanting to tour with them for a long time. Any up coming, unsigned bands from your way which we should listen out for? No, not really. Most of the bands I really like are signed. We did get sent a demo from a band in Chile - I can't remember the name - but that tape was really cool. Are any of you working on any side projects? Not really, I'm always working on the 8-track stuff in my house - I don't think it's going to be released unless it's turned into something Nebula. We're totally busy with the band at the moment, playing gigs with other people. RIGHT - Shall we leave it there? The Heads are just going on stage! Yeah, cool. top of page |
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